I just read an article that started out saying “President Obama, you remembered Hiroshima, do not forget Pearl Harbor.”  I stood one day at Pearl Harbor looking out at the place where the horror of that day took place 75 years ago, and wept for all the young men and women, we as a nation, lost forever. We have a duty to honor those who died and those who went on to fight another day, and those citizens who bravely responded. May we always remember what took place on that day.

On the 50th anniversary of that infamous day, President George H. W. Bush honored those who were there. He spoke of the Arizona:

“Every 15 seconds a drop of oil still rises from the Arizona and drifts to the surface. As it spreads across the water, we recall the ancient poet: “In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God”. With each drop, it is as if God Himself were crying.”

Bush concluded his remarks 25 years ago with the following:

“The heroes of the Harbor…fought for a world of peace, not war, where children’s dreams speak more loudly than the brashest tyrant’s guns. Because of them, this memorial lives, to pass it’s lessons, from one generation to the next, lessons as clear as this Pacific sky.”

May we always remember, and pass on to our children and grandchildren, what took place this day…and during every war that has ever taken place….